I flew 6,000 miles for this?

I'm beginning to think that the writers at The Onion had it right in their analysis of Greece: "Ancient Greece was the birthplace of art, science, democracy, medicine, and philosophy. Today, however, the nation has more important things to do than contribute to the advancement of the human race."

If you've ever considered visiting Athens, I've got a bit of advice for you: don't. If you must, ensure that you've included Athens only as part of a much broader itinerary (I hear the Greek isles are lovely, but the resorts were mostly closed during my visit in October.).

"Now Caton," you say, "what's so bad about Athens?" Well, I'll tell you. Put simply, there's almost nothing to do. On the first morning, for instance, we left our hotel full of energy and wonder, ready to tackle this new city. So, we walked to the Acropolis (If you're keen to be particular, it should actually be called "The Acropolis of Athens" since it's one of many such sites. In ancient times, the Greeks typically built an acropolis - the word literally means "high city" - in all key cities, so the Acropolis at Athens was by no means the only acropolis. It was one of many acropoleis.), climbed to the top, ooh'd and ahh'd at the ruins (This took all of one hour. The Acropolis is surprisingly diminuitive.), then walked back down for a long lunch (The fact that the lunch was long had nothing to do with our personal preferences and everything to do with Greek notions of table service.)

Afterwards, we visited an ancient bathhouse just outside the Acropolis, where I received a tongue-lashing from the guards (To be fair, I probably deserved it; I was climbing on a bit of the ruins as if it were a jungle gym, but at least somebody was having fun.). This second "national treasure" took 15 minutes to explore.

Unimpressed, we then walked over to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which consisted of: (1) some admittedly impressive Greek columns standing in a field; (2) a lawn with no grass; and (3) a surprising quantity of "Do Not Touch" placards. It's as if they were daring me to touch something. I resisted (mostly), for the entire 20 minutes we spent there.

And that was it. After a scant four hours of touring Athens – the majority of which were spent awaiting a Greek salad – we had seen the wonders of Athens. I looked over my map in desperation – surely I had missed some ancient wonder that we had yet to see – but no; we were indeed finished. I turned to Drea, who appeared similarly puzzled:

Me: Well, we're done. But we've we got six more days to burn. And I'm not so sure that I want to spend them here.

Drea: Me neither. This place reminds me of Matamoros (Matamoros is an infamously unattractive border town just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.), except dirtier.

Fortunately, I'm not the type of person to let one bad decision ruin a vacation, so I proposed a change to the itinerary:

Me: How about Istanbul? It's a quick flight over. Let's go there.

Drea: Istanbul? Are you sure that's safe?

Me (I had no idea whether or not Istanbul was safe): Of course it's safe! It's like Disneyland, but with mosques. Oh, that, and the occasional holy war, but they haven't had one of those in quite some time now. The Christian crusaders and the Muslims eventually tired of fighting and they've kissed and made up for the time being.

Drea: Well, okay.

Me: Sweet!

So, we went back to the hotel's internet café, booked a flight to Istanbul online, and woke up the next morning at 5 to catch a flight aboard Olympic Airlines – Greece's national airline – to Istanbul.